I agree with Bagstone in all the aforementioned points. D3 is a technically superior game and it should come to no surprise.

My problem with D3 (and most titles nowadays) is a general lack of RESPECT on a conceptual level. Meaning: The user to world approach is off, and that breaks the game (for me) on a fundamental level.

Let me explain, and please, try to imagine this from the point of view of a casual, not a fan that read all the novels before playing the game.

In D1 you were a nameless hero in search of fortune and fame. You knew nothing of that which you were facing, no monsters spoke to you (except Garbad and Lachdanan), your relationship to the world and its inhabitants was based on exploration and a very few scattered texts that where intentionally cryptically and obscure. You had to venture yourself into the unknown going deeper and deeper with the promise of power and the inevitable fight with the big D.

What is that monster? I don’t know.

What can it do? I don’t know.

What will jump out to eat me if I open that door? I don’t know.

Dying at the beginning of D1 was a very, VERY possible thing. And death meant, well.. That. Death.

The very first "boss" encounter with the butcher was intentionally designed to be unfair.. No cutscenes, no villain monologues (I’m looking at you Magda). You opened a door, and immediately started running for your life. IF you got to kill this fearsome demon, you were rewarded with a powerful item that carried you for a long time.

D2 continued the story of the nameless hero, added beautiful cutscenes, dialogues, etc. But the general INTENTION off all this info was to purposely mislead the player, building momentum for the big plot twist that culminated with LOD.

Then D3 came along and.. You are THE NEPHALEM. A creature so powerful that both angels and demons fear (literal words from Tyrael). There is no reason to fear anything, you da boss.

Diablo lord of.. Whatever BUT terror..

Whenever you accidentally step on a bug, a (magical?) explorer starts rambling about his own experiences with said creature. Decard Cain opened up a bag shop and left free bag samples all around Sanctuary for you to find useless lore? (then got killed)

Everything in D3 is desperate to show some form of personality and connect with the player, even if that means ruining the atmosphere.

Azmodan sending you invoice messages every 5 steps? Even Legion himself cannot fight the urge to give you the lip whenever you do something.. Weren’t these guys planning this for like.. eternity? How can the player be in complete control of the situation, but just five minutes late?

Diablo the lord of terror is afraid of you.

Imperius, the embodiment of valor, is afraid of you.

Azmodan, the greatest commander of the burning hells isn’t wreaking havoc on the battlefield, leading the charge.. No, he waits for YOU on an arena type throne room, as if he had nothing better to do than to just wait for you to kill him.

I could go on and on..

The point is that the focus of the first 2 games was on the monsters, history and atmosphere, whereas the third installment caters to the egocentric point of view of the current "player base".

Not really sorry for rant, cheers

Ps: I still play every season on D3, solo self found. Season 6? It took me 2 days to be facerolling T10 with my monk.. Just finished installing D2 again.

Hi all! After lvling a new toon on PTR with it´s insane 2000% leg drop change... What´s the deal?!? Not ONE single new affix?!?

Am I mistaken or was it not blizz´s idea to give all legendaries some form of uniqueness, via legendary affixes or significant boost to stats?

On my way from 1-70 I found a truckload of legs, almost 20 per hour (one every three minutes) and not a single one of those Scrimshaws, Monster Hunters, Telrandens, Barbers, Aquiras, Broken Crowns, Gifts of Silaria, Messerschmidt Reavers, Skorns, Exarians, Iron Skins, Manald Heals, etc. had a new affix, or revised stat, or what not!

Will we get to test the new affixes on PTR? Is there new stuff to be tested? ...Am I wrong to expect the list of non-legendary items (those that have a beam, but really don´t impact your gameplay) to shorten?

I in particular like the last one, hit the nail on why I find that ability 'unattractive'.

Inner Sanctuary is one of those skills that, as a Monk, I look at and look at, try to jam it into a build, but always inevitably take it right back out. One would think it would be great with cyclone strike to keep enemies in the small 10 yard radius Sanctuary, but there's just so many things that force YOU out of the area of effect.

So many wonderful effects with Inner Sanctuary, but it just fails due to many factors. I feel having it attach to an item and function like an aura, with it's (relatively) short cooldown, this Chest would be highly sought. Aughlid's Chest is currently one of the BiS considerations for many Monks, but I would make room for the one I proposed in favor of Aughlids. It would actually blow Aughlids away.

Belt of Alkatrass - Legendary belt.Enemies trapped by Inner Sanctuary take 3% extra damage each second from all sources. Killing an enemy increases the duration of this effect by one second, up to a maximum of 30% extra damage.

Imagine a time warp kinda bubble that cannot be passed by enemies, not even teleporters, burrowers, or ghosts. Those that are inside are trapped, and those that were outside on cast, remain excluded for the duration of the effect.

It could be used offensively to focus down "pesky" elites that like to run away from you...
It could be used defensively to isolate and skip nasty mobs... Or in party play for some nice tactical advantages.

Bounties feel unrewarding ATM, more of a stepping stone to access Nrifts than an actual place you wanna play/farm. And even then, rift key drops have nothing to do with Torment lvl, so there is no point in running bounties on higher difficulties.

Although this isn´t a bad mechanic, it doesn´t HAVE to be this way. It certainly wasn´t the idea behind bounty implementation.

Bounties should feel rewarding in their own right, but I believe that buffing general drop chance is NOT the way to go. Bounties act as a delayed reward, and I believe that the buff should be on the goodie bag and not the whole process.

Right now there are (arguably) only 3 legendaries of use in the whole bounty process:

Ring of Royal Grandeur: Did I say usable? This thing is mandatory in almost all builds, if not all.

Gloves of Worship: Nice effect on the shrines... Ever seen one? I have around 2,5k hours under my belt and have never seen ONE drop of these.

Illusory Boots: Lets you walk through enemies! I am part of a 60+ member clan. Only one drop, clanwise. (and no, not me)

Aside from ridicule drop chances... Endgame = Sets Who is going to sacrifice a slot for either gloves or boots? Specially since you already "have" to use a RoRG?

So... Ideas! How about better (double or triple) chance of drops on the Nepahlem caches? A guaranteed blood shard drop (10-20) plus a second posible drop of 10-20 shards based on Torment lvl? ...and god forbid, how about a bounty exclusive set usable by all classes? CDR themed maybe?

The damage of all spirit generators is increased by 200% and base attack speed is doubled.Resource spending abilities deal no damage."One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essentialis invisible to the eye."

What more to say? I always wanted a Bruce Lee monk. No fancy or flashy stuff, just punches and kicks! (I´d love to have a kicking generator!)

Im glad its gone. The way it was impleneted was just poor. Create a game, check for a bounty (that mostly isnt there), leave game, rince repeat. Ye, i spent more time farming for mats in the menu and loading screen, than in the actual game.

I voted NO on the poll, yet I agree with you. It had to be removed, but not because it was a bad idea! It just sucked in the way it was implemented.

Runewords were a great idea, and still are IMHO. Runewords became a problem when the system was used to blurr the lines between classes, and suddenly everyone is running dupped Enigmas teleporting like a sorceress.

I´d rather hunt for legendary materials than hunt for blue items, fill inventory, salvage, repeat. Getting 2 arcane dusts from a goblin? It take 60 gobs to craft ONE Aughilds?!?

RANDOM RIFT ENCOUNTERS

Hi all, it´s been a long time since my last post. I wanna discuss some Rift ideas, not just rift bosses.

I have been enjoying the game a lot lately, specially since the anniversary buff, but as I come closer to playing on T6 I´ve started (again) to feel like the game could use some "boosts" in diversity, and I fear that adding new Rift bosses alone will not suffice.

INTRODUCTION

What I suggest is to have encounters in Rifts. Meaning random NPCs that upon activation give you a small side-quest with a guaranteed, targeted drop. Anyone remember Lachdanan from D1? If you helped him free his soul he would give you the "godly" Veil of Steel helm. This item could not drop in any other way... Why? Because he was wearing it!

These encounters could vary in approach, flavour and mechanics. Some would start a quest like Lachdanan, others could work more like a goblin... Imagine chasing the Dark Wanderer through a Rift, only to have that sneaky bastard spawn demons, elites and champions as he tries to get away from you! (Leah paraphrasing Cain about footprints and stuff)

Some could be class specific! Imagine running a rift with your crusader and finding one of the order´s biggest heroes defending a heavily armoured caravan. If you survive a certain amount of enemy waves, then he would deem you worthy of it´s content allowing you to choose one of the Akkhan set pieces, or a legendary crusader shield that is unique to that encounter. (more on party play later on)

These events could even be related to each other! Think of a set, where each event has it´s own reward, but completing them all grants you an even greater reward... Something as hard as this would merit more than just an item (a aesthetic effect maybe?). This would give the more dedicated players something to show for their hard work and perseverance.

But enough of the general concepts. Here is a small list of "events" I came up with, please feel free to share your ideas!

MISCELLANEOUS

The anvil of fury: Can spawn on hell rifts only. Heavily guarded by Hephasto and minions. Must clear the area to activate. Rewards legendary one handed weapon.

Valor: Can spawn on cathedral type rift levels only. Consists of a vault guarded by two Ancients (Orek type thingies). Upon death they merge to summon a legendary armour rack. Rewards legendary chest piece "Arkaine´s Valor".

Poisoned Water: Can spawn on Caverns of Araenae type rift levels only. Upon entering the lvl a NPC marks that the event is active. After a small dialogue, players must search for a small well, enter a "The cave under the well" type area. Upon clearing, the NPC rewards the player with a legendary potion that grants immunity to poison effects for 5 seconds.

Zhar the Mad: Can spawn on fields of misery type rift levels only. Reactivates the House of Curios area. Upon entering the area, the player find Zhar. When clicked upon, Zhar dismisses the player with a random drop (double legendary drop chance). If clicked a second time, Zhar fights the player. Rewards legendary 2-handed staff "Zhar´s madness"

The Magic Rock: Can spawn on any type of open rift area (not caves or dungeons). It consists of a small crater the player must find. It is unguarded. Upon picking up the meteor, the player receives a -25% all resis penalty for the duration of the rift. Upon killing the rift guardian, the penalty is removed and the player is rewarded with the legendary ring "Empyrean Band". (meteor is removed if the player leaves the game. Cannot be dropped on the ground)

Path of the Dark Wanderer: Can spawn on any type of rift area. When the players enters the dungeon, if this event is triggered, then the Dark Wanderer NPC spawns next to the rift entrance and immediately starts it´s journey towards the rift exit. He cannot be targeted and moves at a steady walking speed. It immediately spawns a random elite pack, and continues to spawn more as soon as the players kill the previous one. The faster you kill, the more packs it spawns. -This is on top of what the rift already spawned, so monster density greatly increased!-

CLASS SPECIFIC EVENTS

All class specific events are set events. Completing all events for a given class rewards the player with a aesthetic effect for that class of characters. (can be turned off like angelic wings).
Class specific events are the same for all classes but with different lore flavour. They consist of three challenges:

The souls event.

The caravan event.

The challenge event.

Here are the Barbarian events for example:

Barbarian

The Council´s Revenge:

(Soul Event) Can spawn on all rift type levels. Upon killing the Rift guardian, there is a chance that the player will be visited by Bul-Kathos (Orek type thingy). This NPC tells the player that his actions have not gone unseen to the council, and that they request his help in freeing the souls of the barbarians that died in the explosion of Mount Arreat. If the player accepts, then a portal is opened to one of the Uber maps.
Here the player must defeat two uber bosses that do NOT attack the player, but focus their attention on "killing" 50 barbarian shadows that fight back but deal no damage. The player must defeat the Ubers before they "consume" the 50 souls. When the last soul perishes, the ubers dissapear and the event is lost. If the Ubers are defeated, then the drop chance is calculated based on the amount of souls saved.

When activated on a party, the class type is determined by who got the Rift guardian kill. All classes can complete the event and receive loot. Only same class characters benefit from set completing status.

Family Business:

(Caravan Event) Can spawn on all rift type areas. When exploring, the player might come across a Caravan guarded by a lonely barbarian named Vasily. The player must then help Vasily protect the caravan from a series of elite, champions and normal monsters. The event is lost if both Vasily and the player die. The player can die and resurrect as long as Vasily doesn't perish in the process. If Vasily falls, then the player must complete the event without dying.
Once the event is complete (think of a progress bar like a rift), Vasily explains to the player that he is really Bul-Kathos´s brother and that this was a test of his valor. The player is rewarded with a set piece of the IK set, selectable from a list, plus 3 resplandecent chests with double legendary drop chance.

When activated on a party, the class type is randomly chosen from the classes in the party.All classes can complete the event and receive loot, except for the Set piece. Only same class characters benefit from set event completing status.

A Fight for the Ages:

(Challenge Event) This event can only spawn on single player games, and locks other players from joining once the event starts. To spawn this, the player must first defeat Malthael. Upon death, Malthael can drop a new legendary item, an invitation scroll to the ultimate challenge a Barbarian can face. A combat with Bul-Kathos himself.

Once the player has said item, he must create a single player game and use the scroll to open a portal. This opens up an arena type of map where he must face a huge uber Barbarian shadow that represents Bul-Kathos. If the player defeats this Uber he is rewarded with a Nephalem charm that he must keep in his inventory in order to receive a constant buff (IDK... constant 3 stacks of nephalem glory?)This charm cannot be sold or dropped on the ground.

-------------------------------------------------------I know this would require an imposible amount of work from Blizzard, and that it will most likely never happen. Just felt like sharing Thank you for reading this far, and sorry for the long post!

How about having certain skills receive bonuses from different stats?
Example: A barb always receives damage and armor from str, but... Wouldn´t a skill like weapon throw require SOME degree of dexterity?
The skill description could have a "Receives x% to crit for every dex", or if you are willing to go a bit more on the creative side... Dex could give Weapon Throw a chance to paralise, stun, etc.
In this way, every player would see stats differently, based on the skills they have chosen!
Another example. A skill like Lashing Tail Kick for the monk. The more str, the longer the knockback distance, plus some extra damage... It even makes sense!
Don´t get me wrong. I can see how this would be hard to implement on certain skills like Hydra and many others.
Just felt like sharing the idea, cheers!